Week of December 4th

Hi Everyone, 

     Students will go to Enrichment Labs this Wednesday afternoon. We will also have ticket cash in on Wednesday morning. Students should come ready to cash in their tickets.

     I would like to clear up some misconceptions and confusions where homework is concerned. 
*Technology--Students can begin working on the technology assignment on Friday afternoon. The window for i-Ready and Prodigy runs from Friday afternoon to the following Friday morning. i-Ready is a diagnostic program where students work on a specific lesson plan based on their strengths and weaknesses as measured by the diagnostic that students took in September. Prodigy is a free online math program. I make assignments in Prodigy that matches the concepts that we are working on in class. Students are allowed to break up the assignments in multiple days if they choose. For example a student may choose to do 20 minutes of i-Ready on Friday afternoon. 10 minutes on Monday afternoon and 15 minutes on Wednesday. I encourage students to record all of their activity on their logs so that they can keep track of their minutes.
     *i-Ready--As per the district requirement students are required to complete at least 45 minutes of i-Ready each week.
     *Prodigy--Students are required to complete at least 15 minutes or between 10-20 questions of Prodigy per week. The top 3 students are rewarded on Fridays. I check and count any questions that were answered on Friday, Saturday and Sundays from the previous week.
*Social Studies--I tell students the social studies assignment on Friday that will be due on the following Friday. Social studies assignments are always due on Fridays.
*Math Superstars--I pass out the new math superstars sheet on Friday. The new sheet is due on the following Friday.

     Students are not required to work on any assignment during the weekend. I give these assignments on Friday to help lessen the load during week days. Students that are involved in multiple activities during the week like to get a jump start on assignments during the weekend. 

     This week in math we will begin our fraction unit. This week students will learn how to decompose a fraction into it's parts by using addition and multiplication. For examples 5/6= 2/6 + 3/6 or 5/6= 5 x 1/6. We will learn how to find equivalent fractions using area models and multiplication. 

     This week in science we will take a closer look at sound energy. Students will learn about pitch, frequency, volume, and amplitude. We will complete a lab using tuning forks were we will get to "see" sound.

     This week in social studies we will begin chapter 4. In lesson one students will learn about the constant battle for Florida that took place between Spain, France and England. 

Have A Great Week!!